Upper Peninsula

Staff at Aspirus Keweenaw Hospital in the Upper Peninsula will be joining Michigan’s largest nurses’ union.

The health care workers tallied their mail-in votes this week, with 35 voting in favor of joining the Michigan Nurses Association, and 17 voting against.

Kelly Engle, who’s been a nurse at the hospital for 10 years, says nurses and administrators alike were overwhelmed in the spring when decisions had to be made about caring for COVID-19 patients.

Two universities in Michigan are now each reporting more than 1,000 cases in ongoing COVD-19 outbreaks, according to weekly data released Monday by the state health department. Meanwhile, pre-K-12 schools in West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula are being hit especially hard as those regions remain hot spots for the virus. 

State wildlife officials say the wolf population in the Upper Peninsula remains “healthy and stable.”

The Department of Natural Resources completed its biennial wolf survey between December and March.

Grand Traverse County health officer Wendy Hirschenberger hit a milestone this week she was hoping to never reach: 100 cases of COVID-19 in the county since the pandemic began. While that’s a fraction of what some Michigan counties have seen (Oakland County, for instance, is close to 10,000) what worries Hirschenberger is that 55 of those cases are just since July 1.

Tom McKee is having some hard conversations right now. 

“Do we eliminate our elementary school? That means we put our kids on a bus for two hours one way to get to the nearest school,” says the Superintendent of Whitefish Township School District.

Spanning 270 square miles, the remote district has just 53 students, McKee says. “Do we eliminate our high school? Same thing, putting our kids on the bus, two hours one way.” 

An image of a cougar was caught on a landowner’s trail camera in Gogebic County in the west side of the Upper Peninsula, on July 7.

The Environmental Protection Agency is currently seeking public comment on an application for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) to set their own water quality standards. The KBIC is based out of L'Anse Township in the Upper Peninsula.

Another Native American tribe in the state has voted to legalize recreational marijuana, making them to second tribe in Michigan to do so.

The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians approved of a resolution that mirrors the state’s recreational marijuana laws.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration has given western Upper Peninsula counties a grant to rebuild flood-damaged roads.

A new lawsuit is seeking to compel the federal government to come up with a national plan to protect the gray wolf, including those in the Upper Peninsula. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to try to remove endangered species protection from nearly all gray wolves in the lower 48 states next month.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources says a fatal neurological disease in deer has turned up for the first time in the Upper Peninsula.

The 4-year old doe was discovered about four miles from the Wisconsin border in Dickinson County.

The federal government has again rejected Michigan’s request for federal assistance to Upper Peninsula residents hit hard by flooding in June.

Flooding in the Upper Peninsula earlier this month prompted Governor Rick Snyder to declare a second state of disaster for Houghton County.

The declaration will open up additional resources and money for areas that were still recovering from severe flooding in June.

That flooding washed away large chunks of concrete and asphalt, damaged homes, and killed a 12-year-old boy.

Several roads that had already been repaired were damaged again this month.

The remains of a Michigan man who was killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor have been buried in the Upper Peninsula.

Lowell Valley was 19 years old and in Navy when the USS Oklahoma was attacked. Radio station WDBC says Valley's remains were identified through DNA tests.

Valley's younger brother, Bob Valley, says he received a call from the Navy in January.

A funeral Mass was held Saturday at Holy Family Catholic Church in Ontonagon, followed by burial with full honors at the church cemetery.

The state is asking President Trump to declare three Upper Peninsula counties hit by flash flooding last month disaster areas.

Lt. Governor Brian Calley wants the federal designation extended to Houghton, Gogebic, and Menominee counties. Those counties were hit by record-breaking rainfall on June 17th, flooding homes, buckling roads, and causing one death.